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Daily Report: The New Technology to Save Us From Technology

Smartphones have invaded our lives so quickly and thoroughly, it’s easy to forget that they are still a relatively new technology, Conor Dougherty writes.

The first iPhone came out just eight years ago, and today more than half of Americans have a smartphone of some kind, according to eMarketer. Yet already people spend close to three hours a day looking at a mobile screen — and that excludes the time they spend actually talking on the phones.

Do we manage them well? In a recent survey of smartphone use by Bank of America, about a third of respondents said they were “constantly” checking their smartphones, and a little more than two-thirds said that they went to bed with them. Those habits have prompted enough soul-searching that a number of new companies see a business opportunity in helping people cut back.